California Governor Vetoes Pasadena Senator’s Bill to Pay Unemployment Benefits to Striking Workers

California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 799 on Saturday, a measure that would have provided unemployment insurance benefits for striking workers. The bill, authored by Pasadena representative Senator Anthony J. Portantino, was strongly supported by Hollywood unions and other influential labor organizations in California.

SB 799 would have made striking workers in California eligible to receive up to $450 per week in unemployment insurance benefits. Newsom justified his veto by citing the nearly $20 billion debt of the state’s unemployment trust fund, arguing that now is not the appropriate time to increase costs or incur additional debt.

In his veto message, Newsom wrote, “Now is not the time to increase costs or incur this sizable debt.”

Senator Portantino expressed disappointment in the Governor’s veto and stated that he planned to reintroduce the legislation and hopes to work with the administration on “a financial plan to fix the fund for the long term”.

“I am disappointed in the Governor’s veto of SB 799. The labor unrest and concern we all witnessed this summer earned the Legislature’s action to pass unemployment benefits for striking workers,” Portantino said.

“The need continues and so will efforts to make this the law in California. The hardworking women and men in California need to put food on their table and pay their rent. SB 799 would have injected a small piece of security to working families that is needed and deserved.”

The California Labor Federation’s executive secretary-treasurer, Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, also criticized the veto, saying it “tips the scales further in favor of corporations and CEOs and punishes workers who exercise their fundamental right to strike.”